


Cymbals the Cichlid

by NorthwesternInsanity



Category: Guns N' Roses, Music RPF
Genre: Comedy, Gen, Humor, Pet fish on a bus, Prompt Fill, crackfic, puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22008811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorthwesternInsanity/pseuds/NorthwesternInsanity
Summary: Steven rescues a juvenile Oscar Cichlid from a careless venue owner on tour.  A bus might not be the most ideal location for a fish, but for the rest of the tour, it's better than the alternative.  At least for the fish.  Not all of the band agrees.  But the real question is whether or not Steven can keep up with his new pet.
Kudos: 8





	Cymbals the Cichlid

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of Rockfic's 2019 Ficmas, for marenn, who requested a comedy where Steven tries to keep a pet fish on the tour bus.

"I think we really are in another kind of jungle tonight," Duff sighed, kicking a piece of floating algae aside in the floodwater on the dressing room floor.

The Florida venue they were set to play miraculously hadn't canceled due to the flash flooding that had taken place earlier in the day. But with the underground dressing room with window bays that leaked in the overflow from the wetland and marshes about the back of the venue grounds, Guns N' Roses as a whole were beginning to think they'd been better off if it had been canceled.

Most of them. Axl _did_ want it canceled, with no question to it. He was out on the bus, refusing to come back inside the dressing room or even in the venue itself to get ready while the crew tried to set up without getting anything in water in the semi-flooded areas below the stage. Izzy, who had plenty more to prepare for and greater worry over his guitars in the flooding, was outside and trying to talk him into coming back inside to attempt to make do with them.

The crew was helping them clean it as best as they could. And inside, realizing the night they were in for, Duff, Slash, and Steven were beginning to take matters into their own hands.

Literally. Though it wasn't getting them very far with the saturated ground above the back wall the dressing room was on, still sending water in. Three sinks were along the side wall, and Steven and Slash had begun cupping handfuls of water from the floor on the end wall along the window and trying to transfer it to the sinks. 

When Slash finished the dregs of his current Jack Daniels bottle, he began trying to collect water from the deeper ponding with it so he could pick up more at once, but the awkward shape kept it from being much quicker than scooping with his hands.

"I asked the owner." Duff returned from a run down the hall. "He said they have some cutout in the floor in the corner with a sump pump in there. It should be working to drain it -that's all he said. I guess we could take something and push the water toward it to speed things up."

"I see it over here now, by this sink," Steven announced, pointing to where the floor had a single square-foot section cut out of it, about a foot deep, with the top of a pump emerging from the water filling it.

As everyone got quiet, they could hear the pump making labored moans as it tried to remove the water.

"Let me see." Slash looked over his shoulder. "Oh, okay. There is one. It's cool. I guess it fucking sucks at the same time."

"It doesn't look like it's draining very quick," Duff added on additional inspection. "It's not cool."

Izzy, who had run inside to see how things were progressing, seemed just as unimpressed as Axl had on arrival, save for containing it rather than throwing the massive tantrum that his longtime friend had. 

It's gonna take more than that with the crap in this water. Steven, poke a stick down in there and see if there's any shit blocking it up. We're still taking on water through the window, and I dunno about you, but I don't wanna be wading through it all night. I got Axl inside, but he wouldn't come here. If I find him someplace else in here that's dry, I might just fucking stay there."

"I'm gonna see if there's a mop or something we can push it toward the drain with," said Duff. "Slash, could you maybe ask the owner if we can put a bucket under the window to catch where most of it's coming in? Maybe we can get it under control while we're stuck here."

Steven didn't see when they went off, or what they decided to do, but he found himself alone in the dressing room then while Duff dug in the hall closet and Slash was off somewhere he didn't know.

With a rag in one hand, and an old drumstick too worn to trust playing with onstage in the other, Steven hesitantly approached the recession in the floor.

He poked into it and immediately came up with a few wads of algae, tangled with leaves. That was expected with the growth in the overflowing inlet outside. The stick touched and shifted little pieces of gravel down along the bottom surface. Maybe those were problematic, but between the dark concrete of the floor and the slight murkiness to the water, Steven couldn't see all the way through to the bottom, and there was something about the thought of reaching his hand down where he couldn't see that creeped him out. So he focused on trying to slide them over to one corner, where they weren't blocking too much of wherever the drain was.

As he manipulated his stick blindly through the water, he knocked against the hard side of the pump tube, and occasionally, with something that felt firmer than the algae and leaves, but just soft enough that it wasn't mechanical.

And it wasn't in the same place every time? 

The water was draining slightly better than before, at least. Steven didn't know how to find whatever else was in there, but it wasn't blocking the drain, and maybe if the water got a little lower, he could get rid of it too.

Maybe he'd actually be told he'd done a good job for once!

But then, he felt the strange object contact his stick again, and this time, there was a hard splash that couldn't have come from the pump or the stick. He felt a hard strike on the stick -and _what was that membrane-like triangular structure that lashed above the surface before disappearing?_

Suddenly, Steven yanked his hand up and jumped three feet back, sending his drumstick sailing backward through the dressing room.

"OH MY GOD, THERE'S A _FISH!"_

Initial shock let go as soon as it gripped, and Steven burst out into frenzied giggling as he tried to process what he'd just felt and seen. Hardly able to believe it when he looked in again to see what he'd seen before, he cried out again.

"There's a fish!" 

Duff was the first to come running over. "There's a fish?!"

"In the floor drain -look!" Steven retrieved his drum stick and began running over, but hyped up by the commotion, the fish was now flipping out and splashing in the drain.

"What the fuck?" shouted Duff. "There's actually a fish!"

"No way that came from outside!"

"What didn't?" Slash came back in, confused as he carried two buckets from the owner.

"There's a fish in here!" Steven repeated.

"A fish? Where did it come from?"

"Give me that -I unblocked the drain and it's gonna die when the water goes down in there!" Steven snatched one of the buckets and put it in one of the sinks to fill up.

Shrugging, Slash set the other bucket down under the leaking window bay.

"It oughta do."

"It'd better," came a growl from the doorway. Apparently, Izzy had succeeded, because Axl was reentering the room before him, and behind both of them, the venue owner was on his way.

"Why is there a fish in the drain?" Steven blurted.

Duff winced at him and shook his head aggressively, only pausing to make the quiet sign -if already too late.

"Popcorn, you're telling me that first there was a flood, and now there's a fucking FISH in here?"

"I guess there is -I threw him in the flooding here earlier today," admitted the owner, with an unsettling lack of concern in his voice.

"Why?!" Now Axl and Steven were asking -for opposite reasons.

"I have a tank of Tiger Oscar Cichlids. Thought I'd add another, but the current residents didn't take well to it, and I'm not getting another tank."

"So you just let it die?" Steven's eyes practically bugged out of his head, and Slash started to crack a giggle at how innocent and pitiful he looked, but Duff shook his head solemnly.

"Don't," he whispered.

"You want to keep him? Be my guest," offered the owner. "Consider it compensation. Aside from tank size when they get big and aggression, they're easy to take care of. Domesticated, larger jungle species aren't very delicate."

"Fuck you!" snapped Axl.

"I think I will!" Steven declared, and as the owner walked off, it went silent with collective shock, and unspoken amusement of poorly-timed responses.

That was, until Steven lifted the bucket from the sink and set it down hard on the floor. He took a glance toward Axl's death glare, which was now tinged with disgust.

"Don't even start -of _course_ I said that about the fish!"

He reached into the even-lower drain, with the fish now flopping in panic as it hardly had room to maneuver, and managed after a few failed attempts to get a grip on the fish and transfer it into the bucket with deep, safe, clear water.

It was then that he got a look at the fish, with its big eyes and swishing fins and tail, and his heart swelled.

"Alright, at least the room is half useable now. But Steven. Get real. You can't keep it," Izzy reasoned.

"If it has the smallest chance more of living with me, I'll try it," Steven argued. "We have a day off tomorrow -I can go to a store and figure something out."

Izzy heaved a sigh. "Fine, I'm not arguing. I've already done enough of that."

Steven looked down proudly at the young Tiger Oscar swimming around in circles in the bucket. It was far from an ideal enclosure -he'd indeed have to find something transparent tomorrow -but it functioned for the time, and the fish was young and small enough that having a large tank wasn't a necessity yet.

"What should I name him?"

"It's a _fish,"_ Axl groaned.

Slash turned to Steven. "What'd the guy say it was? A Cheetah Oscar?"

"A Tiger Oscar," corrected Izzy. "It's a variety of a Cichlid, whatever the fuck that means -I'm assuming a big fish. Of fish tank varieties."

"The orange spot on his tail makes him look more like a Cheetah or a Leopard than a Tiger. Maybe I'd call him that if he had stripes, but he doesn't," Steven mused. "Should I call him Oscar?"

"You call him whatever the fuck you want," Axl sneered. "But the second you let him get in the way or cause trouble on the bus, he's dead. I'll be sure of it! And I bet it won't even be a week!"

"You'd put him down the drain?" Steven looked at Axl with a look of betrayal. "I just saved him from one!"

Axl groaned dramatically and flipped his hands up in the air.

"Of fucking COURSE, I'm not putting that monster down a drain; he'd block it!"

Slash began giggling at that.

"I've fucking had enough of you shitheads tonight." Axl turned around and stormed out.

"Great, now we're gonna have to drag him onstage again," Izzy muttered. "'Cause he's gonna have to get ready on the bus -I'm not dragging him back in here again."

"He's being a party pooper," Steven pouted. "The only reason he's upset is because there's water on the floor. He thought it was funny the time we had a _bird_ get in the dressing room and start flying around! Apparently an Oscar fish is a problem!"

"I dunno, dude, the way you describe him, he's got too interesting a story to have a name as generic as Oscar. I agree with Iz; let's be fucking real." Slash was still giggling, tickled to death with the situation.

Just then, everyone flinched as the path of water adjusted with the dropping of the level once more, and one of Steven's cymbal stands set up to the side of the room went crashing down.

"When you say them together, 'cymbal' kind of sounds like 'cichlid'," Duff suggested.

"Maybe Cymbals?" asked Steven, perking back up. "Do you think it really sounds like a name that fits for a fish?"

"Not for most fish, but he sure came crashing into our lives tonight," Duff quipped. "If that doesn't fit a name like Cymbals..."

Steven grinned again as he looked down into the bucket to twitching fins, and a twitching jaw with a pronounced underbite -if he didn't have the biggest personality he'd seen on a fish -at least, of the few he'd seen.

"Cymbals," he murmured. "Welcome to our kind of jungle."

................

"It's even worse than I thought _last night!"_

Axl complained every few minutes as he watched Steven, now with supplies -some bought and some obtained by more questionable methods -trying to set up a temporary living condition for Cymbals on the bus for the rest of the tour. Until he could figure out a more permanent situation back at home.

"You can't keep a fish on a bus, Steven. Fish tanks are a fucking piece of work -you can barely handle yourself, let alone a fish! And how do you think you're going to manage changing the water? Or are you going to let it get nasty and stink up the bus -if that shit doesn't kill him first!"

"I'll do that at stops -of course I can't do that while we're moving!"

"To be fair, Axl, Steven _does_ seem pretty committed to this." Duff sneaked a weak, but supportive smile toward Steven.

"Why, because he's making a minimal attempt to think it through for once?!"

"I don't care whether we have a fish on the bus or not," Izzy finally spoke. "But here's how I think it's gonna be. Cymbals is Steven's to take care of."

"The fuck he is! Popcorn, if you think you're getting help from any of us while you figure out how to do whatever you have to do, tough shit -it's not happening!" 

Izzy sighed, but didn't argue with Axl. "You're on your own, Steven. If he dies because he didn't get something he needs, it's on you."

"That's fair," Steven agreed. He was setting up the twenty-gallon tank on the shelf overtop of the front lounge couch, above the spot he typically sat in. The shelf supported most of the fish tank, but not all of it.

"How are you going to keep it from falling when the bus moves?"

Steven reached down into a non-description sack -suggesting he'd lifted the contents, which were indeed much smaller and discreet than the large fish tank and pet-specific supplies.

"Bungee cords!" he exclaimed proudly. Beneath it was a small scrap of plywood that had been obtained by official means at a Lowe's, as it was also too awkward a shape to sneak out without being caught.

"I got this too." He began duct-taping the piece of plywood on the shelf, adding more surface for the tank to be supported on. "The cords aren't that stretchy, so they'd probably be enough, but since the tank is heavy, I have this to make sure they don't stretch far enough for the tank to fall through them."

"Yeah, because you're not too high off your ass to think for once!"

That was true. Steven had been so preoccupied trying to get supplies for Cymbals that he had only shot up once since the show, and that was technically in the early morning before going to bed.

"Well, maybe that's a good thing, since all you've done is complain about me lately!" Steven shook his head and turned back to the tank, which he was now placing on top of the board and securing to the window frame and shelf with the cords. "At least Cymbals appreciates it!"

"_'Cymbals'_ doesn't have the brains to give a shit."

"Actually, Oscars are considered pretty intelligent for fish," Duff offered, holding up the book he'd swiped from the library with Steven. For once, it had even been Steven's suggestion to sneak into a library and see if they had anything with information about caring for larger tank fish.

"So he has slightly better fish brains than most. Maybe Steven will manage to learn a few things from him."

"Axl, for pity's fucking sake," groaned Duff. "Give it a chance!"

Using a spigot outside a rest area later that day, Steven filled the fish tank and transferred Cymbals from the bucket they still had from the venue, which he now designated to tank maintenance.

The sharp bend of the ramp getting back on the interstate showed Steven that his method to secure the tank could hold the weight in place. Cymbals seemed unfazed by the motion in his new spot, and Steven resumed his place on the couch, seeming perfectly happy even with the few times he forgot there was a fish tank partially extended over his head and came up too fast under it.

"Don't concuss yourself," Izzy muttered jokingly. "You'll be high in a different way."

Steven grinned and shrugged off the heckling with a joke of his own.

"He's living up to his name, crashing into my head!"

................

His bandmates had bets as to how long he'd be able to keep up with the fish tank. Steven was sure of it. Of course, Cymbals would eventually grow too big to live on the bus if he was capable of growing as large as his hand. 

But Steven was determined to keep him in good condition on the bus until the end of the tour. If he managed, while Cymbals would have to live at home, maybe he'd keep a smaller, more practical kind of fish on the bus next tour.

Maybe a Betta. He'd get a red one and name it Axl.

_It'll be great,_ he thought, smirking to himself one afternoon a week later as he went to go feed Cymbals immediately after waking up, rather than running to shoot up as he might have before.

His performances were improving because of it. He didn't have the shakes as often, and he wasn't getting teased as often because of it.

In turn, Cymbals had become the new subject for teasing.

Two weeks later, on early arrival to a venue that had easy access, Steven took the opportunity to do a fifty percent water change, as the book he'd swiped from the library with Duff recommended.

It went over well. Mostly. He did have to get some rags and clean up a small spill, and he'd remember to put a cut-up trash bag over his seat to guard it next time. But he didn't mind the consequence for himself.

Cymbals was slightly disturbed by the new water pouring in, but seemed calm once it was over. Steven took note, and the next day, strove to prevent future upsets.

"Why are you playing in the fish tank?" Axl demanded, getting out of his bunk to see Steven with his hand in the top of the tank. "That's gross!"

"Some Oscars develop aggression as they get older," said Steven. "I'm getting him used to seeing my hands over the tank so he won't try to attack me later whenever I feed him or change his water. And so he's not scared of it."

Slash chuckled softly from his seat beside Steven on the couch, looking up over his shoulder, before resuming his reclined position.

Axl snorted. "Yeah, and how well is that going, Popcorn?"

"He head butted my hand a couple of times," Steven admitted. "But he doesn't do it anymore, as long as I don't go in there too fast -then it scares him. Look!"

He gradually lowered his hand down into the water, and almost like a cat, Cymbals brushed against it.

Slash looked back up just in time to see.

"Aw, he likes you!" Through a drunken mumble and having his face covered, it was hard to tell if Slash was being sarcastic or if he was impressed with Steven's work.

"Next thing, you're gonna train him into being a fiend who hates the rest of us." Izzy shook his head and grinned. "Fuck's sake, I don't know anymore if I find it more ridiculous or if it's funny because I never would have dreamed this."

"Yeah, pinch me," Axl spat, motioning toward the others as if daring them to do it. "Wake me up from this nightmare."

Duff raised his eyebrows at the dare that would undoubtedly bring about a murder attempt, given Axl's current mood.

"Nice try; I'm not stupid."

"Sorry, you wouldn't want me to do it with tank water hands," Steven replied, and stopped at that before some remark that had been high as he'd been before Cymbals came along, he might have indeed dared to.

Not denying Axl had a nice side he'd seen more often than he sometimes deserved to, Steven had known before that Axl could be grumpy in his moods.

He just hadn't realized _how_ grumpy until he'd reached his current, half-sober state.

After a moment, he hooked it back to the previous topic.

"But you're welcome to come introduce yourself to him so he gets used to you too."

"You know what? I will."

Slash pulled his legs up, shifted around, and knelt on the couch next to Steven beside the tank. Without touching hard enough to produce a tap, he placed his fingertip to the side of the tank and watched as Cymbals swam over to investigate.

A small smile formed on his face. His eyes were obscured by his hair, but he was looking straight at Cymbals, who seemed to be looking right back.

"He actually is kind of cute though."

"You think all animals are cute," Izzy reminded him.

Slash shrugged. "Does it matter?"

He looked at Cymbals, who had grown about an inch since they'd gotten him a month prior. At his stage in growth, his features were becoming more prominent with size. His round, bulging fish-eyes shifted expressively as he looked from side to side, his mouth set in a more endearing underbite than before, and his side fins twitched at high speed as he looked about Slash's finger pressed on the side of the tank. While he stayed focused on it, and attempted to move closer before being thrown off by the glass barrier, he did not charge it as an aggressive Oscar might have.

"I think he likes you too," Steven declared.

"Sorry, Axl," Slash offered sincerely. "I think I'm gonna have to admit, I like him being here."

................

Five months later, by the final leg of the tour, Cymbals had more or less become an accepted fixture on the bus.

Groupies visiting the bus were surprised -and seemed surprisingly tickled to see that they'd gone to the trouble to keep an ornamental fish. Which was a stretch of the imagination, considering the brown basis of Cymbals' coloring. Though, with growth, faint stripes of silver and reddish-orange had crept into his scales.

One night, a follower made a semi-snide remark that Steven's drumming had improved massively since the last time they'd visited the town.

He'd traded his title as the worst junkie in the band for the best tour-bus fish parent. Indeed, he wasn't clean, but he had enough distraction to make it longer between fixes, and not feel withdrawals as strong in between.

"A therapy fish, maybe?" Slash asked, after nearly having to be taken to the hospital on a night he'd overdone it. "Maybe I need one. Except I'd rather have a snake."

"You can share with Steven for the rest of this tour," snapped Axl, as he'd drawn the short straw for being the responsible one to stay up with Slash while he recovered that night. "One pet on this bus is enough!" 

Steven wasn't fooled. He'd left his bunk curtain cracked open when he finally went to bed, and watched while Axl stayed up with Slash on the couch.

He fell asleep smiling to himself when he saw Axl dragging his finger along the outside of the tank, watching as Cymbals followed it.

Peace fell, until the last week. All was fine on the drive one afternoon, until a car cut the bus off, the bus broke hard.

"Holy shit!" yelped Duff, as he got flung out of his seat, still half-asleep.

Axl stood up after hitting his head on the wall of the bus. "Fucking idiot, that's what-!"

But then an unopen beer can slid down the shelf and slammed into the side of the tank, frightening Cymbals, who was much larger and stronger than a few months prior.

Cymbals jumped in the tank with a few hard splashes, and came up just right on the third that the lifting lid knocked open and he went flying out, flopping around on the couch.

"OHHH!" Slash yelped and jumped a foot off the couch, lost his balance, and went crashing into Axl, knocking them both down in the aisle.

"POPCORN!" Axl screeched, shoving Slash off him and onto the floor. "Get your fucking FISH!"

Steven hurled himself out of his bunk and went flying up the aisle, faster than he'd ever been seen in motion.

"OH, GOD," he gasped, hyperventilating in wild panic, eyes practically bugging as large as Cymbals' eyes often looked. "Cymbals!"

Sprawled in a pile on the floor, barely propped up on one arm with his knees bent up to his chest, Slash pointed across the bus aisle and erupted in laughter much louder than he usually produced.

"Shut _up,_ Slash," Izzy groaned. "Fuck, it's _not funny!"_

"Y-yes it IS!" Slash collapsed backwards in his seat, as if Izzy's declaration had made the whole thing twice as funny.

"No, it's NOT!" This time, Izzy and Steven said it in unison, the latter struggling to get a grip on Cymbals, who was instinctively flopping around, making it even harder to grasp his slippery scales.

"THIS is WHY we can't have a fish on a fucking BUS!" yelled Axl.

"Axl, this is not the time!"

Finally, Steven caught the escapade Cymbals by yanking his t-shirt off and throwing it overtop of him. He scooped him up, and only once he was over the tank did he let it unfold to release Cymbals back into the water. 

"Whew, that was crazy even for us," Steven whispered to himself.

He stood before the tank, watching intently for signs of life.

"Did he live?" asked Duff.

"Not floating or sinking. His gills are pumping really fast though." Steven was breathing just as heavily as Cymbals was in the water. "Shit, that was a close one. Duff, you said in that book, they fight a lot too, right? How do they do if they get hurt?"

"When two or more in the same tank show territorial aggression, yeah. Torn fins -sometimes they get white scarring. As long as you clean the water, he should heal in a couple of months.

"He's your fish, so you're doing that on your own like any other time, got it?" Izzy shot Steven a look, telling him he might as well not even think about asking for help with Cymbals' recovery.

Steven sighed with relief, not even caring that he'd have to remember to clean the water on a stricter, more frequent schedule and manage it on his own without making a mess -which was challenging already on the two-week schedule he'd taken to. Cymbals probably wasn't out of the woods yet, but he'd made it past the most critical point. If he survived the shock, he'd likely survive his injuries too.

"I can do it. He'll make it."

"Damn it!" Axl growled.

"You're not fooling me a second," Steven quipped, at which Axl looked slightly taken aback, not having realized he knew.

"That's almost as good as the time I was a kid and the snake got in the grandfather clock!" Slash was still trying to calm down, and try as he might have, he kept breaking out into smaller rounds of subdued laughter.

"Your grandmother has the patience of a fucking saint," Izzy muttered. "When did this happen? I didn't hear about -you know what? I don't wanna know."

"I forgot to put the weight back down on the top of the tank, and the snake pushed his way out and climbed up the side of the grandfather clock and went in through the side," Slash explained. "I think Cymbals has grown enough that he needs a weight on the top of his tank too! That's it -I'm bringing him next time -they'll be two of a kind!"

"Yeah, welcome to our fucking tour bus jungle -it's really becoming that!" Axl groaned. "If Steven doesn't have anyplace better to put him while we're away, Cymbals can go live at home with your snakes."

"I'd be cool with that," Slash admitted.

Steven grinned as he secured the tank lid with a strip of duct tape. "Thanks -and I bet he'll love it there too!"

Duff came up beside him to investigate.

"Look, he earned his stripes, and he's gotten his rock and roll rough edges now! If any fish could have survived the drug streets of L.A. with us, it's this guy here!"

"After that, I hate to say it, but I agree," said Axl with resignation 

Minor tears in the edge of one fin, and a couple of white track marks on his scales. Most of it would heal and fade, leaving scars just like Steven's own. Maybe the others someday.

His wildness certainly wouldn't fade though.

Steven chuckled to himself, sitting back, reclining his head on the edge of the shelf above his seat. It was the last week of the tour. Steven had managed what he'd set out to do, and somehow in the process, Cymbals had become one of them.

And just another one in their jungle, getting wilder every day.


End file.
